It’s been a week since conservatives overpowered the public
sector unions in Wisconsin and gave the taxpayers of that state a
decisive victory in the battle to rein in government spending. The
win gave the American majority hope that they can retake their
government from union forces that have burdened most of us with
seemingly insurmountable debt. As Wisconsin’s lessons for the
conservative movement become clear, no message can be clearer than
the viability of a sustainable fiscally conservative human
infrastructure to counter the left. Exploring how that
infrastructure came together in Wisconsin gives us a blueprint for
success in other states buckling under progressive overreach.
To that end, it’s important to note that the Wisconsin battle
didn’t begin in 2012, or 2011 for that matter. Our own work in
Wisconsin began in the fall of 2010 with the launch of American
Majority and Media Trackers in the state. Full-time American
Majority staff in Wisconsin conducted more than 30 training
sessions across the state since the spring 2011, and last year as
the budget battle heated up American Majority was able to leverage
the local infrastructure it helped develop into a potent voice in
favor of Gov. Scott Walker’s reforms. When 10,000 people turned out
for the Tea Party and American Majority rally on the capitol steps
in Madison on February 20, 2011, we knew that the taxpayer wasn’t
going to be bullied by the state’s protected ruling class of
unionized bureaucrats. The fight was on.
We also launched at the time a new and potent force for
accountability and transparency: Media Trackers. Started in
Wisconsin as the conservative answer to the liberal Media Matters,
but on a local scale, Media Trackers with two full-time staff, has,
over the last fifteen months, relentlessly exposed public
corruption, incompetence, media bias, and the fleecing of the
taxpayer. Since February of 2011, Media Trackers has compiled more
than 750 articles to drive a message of change, all about Wisconsin
issues.
Perhaps Media Trackers’ most important contribution to the
blueprint in Wisconsin was ensuring that Walker’s administration
didn’t take a sharp turn to the left. The organization helped
highlight and quash the Walker administration’s support of Assembly
Bill 210, the forerunner to healthcare exchanges, which mirrored
many of the same flawed principles of Obamacare. When the
conservative movement inside Wisconsin fell silent, too afraid to
risk challenging the Walker administration on the issue, Media
Trackers was the only in-state group that was willing to take on AB
210 and kill it.
Then in April 2012, after months of work in identifying and
training new leaders, American Majority-trained candidates won
seats on eight different county commissions in the state. There
were other American Majority trained candidates that won seats at
other levels of government, but remember that Scott Walker himself
was launched from a county commission seat to the governor’s
office, where he enacted reform based off the issues he saw and
dealt with at the county level.
Finally, in May the last component brought the grassroots into
the 21st century and catapulted it past the left. It’s called
Gravity, and the American Majority Action Liberty Headquarters
program introduced the latest campaign and grassroots management
technology into Wisconsin. The high-tech smart phone and tablet
compatible program was deployed that allowed already well-trained
and highly motivated grassroots to effectively target and contact
high intensity voters. The results were 40,000 voter contacts and a
14% increase in turnout for Walker over 2010 numbers in the key
counties where the technology was utilized.
Working in combination in Wisconsin, grassroots training,
candidate training, issue advocacy, bipartisan accountability,
grassroots mobilization, and technology together fueled a
conservative revolution in a state many thought was hopelessly torn
apart by Walker’s reforms. Successful efforts in the future will
require this same multifaceted approach developed over a long
period of time.
Gone should be the days the right leaning and liberty-minded
trying to develop and mobilize volunteers in the last six weeks of
a campaign every two years. This is about action every day, every
year.
This is about perpetual war against the left and the forces of
statism.
For too long, we spent all our time focused on developing big
ideas, writing white papers, and thinking great thoughts while the
left was out in the streets beating us time and time again. We now
see the results of that flawed strategy — a nation on the brink of
bankruptcy and a ruling class of civil servants forcing the
majority to pay for what they cannot afford.
Conservatives need to change the paradigm. Victory against
statism is possible with constant, sustained and coordinated
action. It’s about a systematic, constant approach to fundamentals
of accountability and transparency.
Wisconsin teaches us that we as conservatives must fight to
protect American values. If we don’t, no one else will. We can’t
pat ourselves on the back for being right. We have to get into the
trenches. We can’t rely on the Republican Party, which all too
often works to maintain shades of the status quo that don’t paint a
picture of a viable future.
We are fundamentally trying to shift the dynamics and leverage
what we already know: the American people are by and large
conservatives. Armed with the facts, and American principles,
a real, organized, locally driven conservative movement can give us
real hope and real change.
